Tag Archives: Workout

I have been getting injured while working out a lot lately and finally figured out why. It is crucial for one to either refrain from heavy exercise or interrupted routines. This, of course, might seem a little off to you.

Generally speaking, when you keep a regular exercise schedule your body reaches a point where it is used to the strain. Your muscles become tensed and your metabolism boosts to account for the damage caused by exercising. Additionally, you sleep soundly. When this schedule is interrupted for a long enough period of time, your body relaxes, but not your perception of how much it can handle. I have been easing off for a while now, not following any particular routine or exercising as diligently as I used to, yet I maintained the same level of effort during my sessions. This, in turn, caused me to frequently get injured because my body did not get a chance to slowly return to its formal capabilities. Basically, there is no balance between eat, rest, sleep and training.

There are two ways these unfortunate and uncalled for injuries can be avoided, based on testing various methods of coping. The first is to keep a regular strict schedule and refrain from sudden increments in your routine. Meaning that you would not jump from squatting 100 lbs to squatting 150 lbs in a few days. The second is to increase your warm-up and stretching time to make sure your body is fully prepared for rigorous exercise. During your warm up, however, you should be patient and avoid exhausting yourself prematurely. The purpose here is not to train, but to prepare for training, both mind and body.

Injuries can be annoying and prevent you from exercising regularly or negatively impact your personal life. Fortunately they can be avoided with a little care and discipline.

I went to the gym today and realized something rather odd. Apparently, the only reason I listen to music during my workouts is because I really despise the type of gay-ass music gyms are so fond of. There was no music on today and I enjoyed the hell out of it, I also found a great deal of motivation in the sound of iron clashing and hitting the floor.

It has been quite a while since I posted something, been very busy lately with my new business and haven’t been finding the time to update this blog.

Anyway, about six weeks ago I was finished with my first round of power-lifting routine, it lasted around four months and I gained 13 kilograms. The strength and weight gains were ridiculous, especially for a strict no supplement diet.

Ever since I completed the first cycle of my power-lifting routine, I have been preparing for the second cycle, this time calisthenics will be added to the routine and the rest days will be reduced from four to one.

An extra addition would be the daily 20-40 minute cardio which will be split to 20 minutes on different machines rotating between rowing, treadmill and elliptical.

power-lifting days will be split among 4 different exercises, squats, bench press, military press and deadlifts. day one will include 5×5 squats with increments of 5 lbs per workout, 5×5 bench press with increments of 5 lbs per workout. day two will include 5×5 squats with increments of 5 lbs per workout, 5×5 military press with increments of 5 lbs per workout and 1×5 deadlifts with increments of 10 lbs per workout.

If I fail to complete the designated sets and reps the weight will remain the same for the following workout.

As for the calisthenics days, I will not follow a particular routine or exercising patterns, A total of 4 exercises will be completed per day each with 3 sets of no more then 12 reps. I will be adding weights to attempt and reach muscle failure by the 10th rep of the final set.

So basically I will have one day of power-lifting and one day of calisthenic-based training with cardio as a warm-up for each workout.

The previous cycle improved my strength and added a decent amount of weight, this routine is aimed at further increasing strength, stamina and endurance.

The following are the weight I started training with for the first cycle:

I started noticing that as I increased the weights I train with, my I keep loosing proper form, it reached a level that when I squatted I couldn’t break parallel, so I decided to take a step back in my weights.

If you don’t want to be someone that has a stiff and unnatural walk, then you should make the most out of your exercise motion, try starting from the point of least muscle stress to the point of most muscle stress.

When I do bench presses I make sure that the bar touches my chest when lowering it, and the push motion ends at just before my elbows lock, this was the form I lost at 220 lbs, now I’m back to 190 lbs to master the form yet again.

Squatting used to hurt my knees and back occasionally, but since I started breaking parallel at the ‘down’ motion, the pain is completely gone, and the soreness resonates to to areas that it didn’t reach before.

From now on I will prioritize form over gains or weight increases, this should result in a better overall posture, more flexibility and eventually getting a stronger and fitter body.

So I’ve been exercising for 4 weeks now, 3 times a week. I keep increasing my exercising weights by increments of 5 lbs each workout, and I finally split the five exercises in a practical manner.

The problem is that I cannot add my calisthenics to the routine due to time limitations, I only have 1.5 hours each day to exercise, and whenever I exercise heavy weights I require rest the following day.

Another factor I’ve begun noticing is motivation, the routine has been established and its becoming easier and easier to start my day early, it started feeling like an obligation, like washing your teeth in the morning or making your bed.

I finally set down with exercising 2-3 heavy weight exercises and doing from 10-30 mins cardio each day I workout, I also add a minimum of 1 calisthenics exercise. Eventually I plan on working out 5 times a week with cardio substituting with my rest days, I still can’t find the energy for it, possibly due to the winter.

So far I’ve been keeping track of my progress via a sheet where I record the reps, weights, exercises and sets for each workout. I am considering replacing the workout number with the actual date of the workout, also adding my weight and, perhaps, body fat percentage.

I plan to continue with this routine for another 8 weeks and, hopefully, by then I would have a better conclusion regarding the experianced workout, so far I’m loving it.

So far I didn’t really give you any solid routines to follow, or even exercises.

Today, I will share with you my current workout, it is a simple non-time consuming workout that I do as often as I can without disrupting my work-flow.

For starters it is greatly influenced by a guy called Mehdi Hadim, his website is called stronglifts and that is his address <http://stronglifts.com/>

I split my workouts between strength training, calisthenics, and cardio.

Everyday I do some cardio, on my weight days (strength) I do 10-30 minutes of warm-up cardio, this is not considered cardio at all since its under 45 minutes, its just to warm-up and get the blood flowing.

On my calisthenics days I cardio for about 45 – 90 minutes and then go ahead with the rest of my training.

My schedule goes as follows:

Day 1: Strength (all exercises but cardio are 3 sets and 5 reps)

10 – 30 mins of cardio

Bench press

Squats

Military press

Deadlifts

Rows

Day 2: Calisthenics (I aim for having my max rep at 12 or 15 and add weights to achieve this)

45 – 90 mins of cardio

Dips

Pull-ups

Push-ups

Crunches

Inverse rows

Rinse and repeat, that is the workout I’ve been following for about a month now and its working just fine, I will be changing it two months from now to a new routine, not sure what yet.

I use this table to keep track of my progress for this routine, each routine has its own table Recording My Progress.

The point is to keep adding light weights every single exercise and continuously improve and progress.

Did you ever feel that you want to do something but don’t know where to start? The feeling of being somewhat clueless about something can sometimes drive people away from a certain idea, goal or aspiration.

After being stuck myself in a similar situation (not exercise related though), I realized that it would be helpful if someone paved the path to a healthier life-style, that is if you are stuck in the beginners dilemma.

I believe the easiest way to begin something is to have certain steps to follow. I came up with these steps after thinking about my own personal experience, that allowed me to stay on track for over 11 years.

Step 1: Make a resolution

Resolutions are incredibly effective if you stick to them and constantly remind yourself about them, nothing beats a good resolution in terms of motivation.

A good resolution (you can call it goal or objective) needs to be difficult to achieve, yet achievable. Do not set impossible goals such as loosing 10 kg (22 lbs) in a week, goals like these would simply demotivate you.

Tell people about your objectives so that they encourage you and, most importantly, try to impress them.

These are the basic most important features of a good resolution, you might want to further look into the subject if you want to apply it to other aspects of your life.

Step 2: Start right away

When you decide you want to start exercising, just do it. You can start by exercising for 30 mins at home doing some push-ups and crunches. It is essential to start right away, the more time you spend on a thought the less and less it starts to seem appealing.

Do not focus on the minor details regarding your first workout such as exercises, nutrition and timing, it might be overwhelming and put you off. The first time you exercise just do what you know, then afterwards you would know what you need to know and, should start researching.

Step 3: Research

Research is incredibly important, but not the kind where you just read about other’s goals and achievements, you should read everything that is evenly remotely associated to exercising. Do not expect this process to end on one long sleepless night, this is a process that lasts for a lifetime. I am a firm believer that we never stop learning and should constantly strive to know more as long as we are able to maintain a healthy-balanced-functional life.

Once you read a workout, or watched a video about a certain routine, apply it and record your own progress. Progress recording should not necessarily be a written journal-like log, you can just remember where you started off and compare.

Step 4: Continuation, the final step

The final step is simply not stopping, you keep on exercising and trying out different things. Making it a habit is the most important part, not the exercising part only, but also the learning and the constant change.

These are the steps that I personally used and work fine for me, hopefully this will help you jump-start your exercising habit and make it a permanent thing.